Pachacuti integrates environmental concerns into our production process and business operations with the aim of reducing and preventing pollution, emissions, waste and harmful chemicals. We are committed to using locally-sourced, sustainable raw materials throughout our supply chain. We aim to be a sustainable business by finding environmentally-friendly means to continuously improve our performance.
Sustainability is often considered in relation to raw materials, but at Pachacuti we believe that sustainability has to be integrated into the entire supply chain. We are the first organisation in the world to be certified against the World Fair Trade Organisation's Sustainable Fair Trade Management System which brings sustainability issues into every area of our policy and processes.
Pachacuti has signed up to DEFRA's Sustainable Clothing Roadmap, a UK government inititative designed to improve environmental performance and traceability across the supply chain. Pachacuti focuses on the following key areas:
We work towards minimising CO2 emissions through ensuring local supply chains. Pachacuti maps the supply of all raw materials and components involved in our supply chain with the aim of ensuring that they are as local, ethical and sustainable as possible. Over 90% of our raw materials are sourced within country, the rest come from neighbouring South American countries, thus contributing to the local economy as well as reducing CO2 emissions. As far as possible, we verify the sustainability and ethical policy of all suppliers of our raw materials.
The maximum environmental impact of a garment is generally caused by the consumer due to the impact of washing and drying. For the majority of garments, this causes far more environmental impact than either production or disposal.
Pachacuti takes this into consideration when selecting the fibres which we use for our garments. For instance, we believe alpaca is one of most the environmentally friendly fibres available as it:
100% of our Ecuadorian clothing has tagua nut buttons. Tagua nut is also known as "vegetable ivory", because of its similarity to the very unsustainable elephant ivory.
Tagua nut buttons are an important means of rainforest conservation as the nuts can be sustainably harvested and areas with tagua trees are not deforested. This helps to support a viable local economy without contributing to deforestation as Tagua nut trees will produce for a century or more.
Pachacuti promotes the idea of slow fashion through a product's design, production and consumption.
Pachacuti makes a life cycle assessment of new products at the design stage. High environmental impact occurs during the consumer phase of a garment's life cycle, with only low impact occurring during production and disposal. Approximately 2/3 of our clothing and accessories are made from alpaca which has a low impact during consumer use as it repels stains and odours and rarely needs washing. Moreover, as alpaca stays looking like new for years (estimated 10 year life cycle) it reduces the frequency of purchase of replacement garments. All of our products are 100% biodegradable or recyclable.
Most of our producers are members of co-operatives or associations, but carry out their work at home. This provides a sustainable livelihood as it is a supplementary form of income to their agricultural work, filling time between seedtime and harvest. This allows them to stay within their rural communities, rather than moving to cities for low paid work.
Pachacuti works with our producers on a long-term basis. In fact, we have worked for more than 10 years with over 50% of our producer groups and several of them have been with us since 1992. Every year we develop an action plan with our producer groups which allows them to direct how Fair Trade will benefit them, giving them a key role in deciding our capacity building strategy for the year. Together we identify and and prioritise actions which will improve our Fair Trade business relationship from training courses and improvements in health and safety through to paying for their Christmas party!
Pachacuti ensures environmentally responsible production methods throughout our supply chains. We Eco-map the premises of our producer groups, following each production route in order to identify any issues in terms of Health & Safety, Waste Management, Energy use, Storage of Chemicals and Pollution. Promoting environmental awareness is an important part of our business relations with our suppliers and we give presentations to our fair trade producers to convey the importance of environmental sustainability. Dyes: We are committed to using AZO free dyes in our clothing range as required by Directive (2002/61/EC) of the European Union. Our largest Panama Hat producer groups have a purification system to filter out the chemicals used in the bleaching process and re-use the water, as do the suppliers of 'hoods' for our felt hats. Paja toquilla for our panama hats comes from organic, sustainable, community-owned plantations which are working to encourage biodiversity in coastal Ecuador.
Pachacuti integrates environmental concerns into our production process and business operations with the aim of reducing and preventing pollution, emissions, waste and harmful chemicals. We are committed to using locally-sourced, sustainable raw materials throughout our supply chain. We aim to be a sustainable business by finding environmentally-friendly means to continuously improve our performance.
